Page 9 of Honeybees and Sexy Tees
“Both. You give me anything and everything I need, but you have no regard for who I am as a person anymore.”
“Which is why you earned your bachelor’s degree in business behind my back.” The words were made as a statement, but I could hear the hurt in his voice.
“No, I went to school and earned a degree in business without telling you because you never asked. You just assumed I would always have to depend on you to survive.” I held up my gnarled hand and tapped my temple. “My physical and mental disabilities tell me I’ll always need someone to help me, but that doesn’t mean it has to be you.”
He shifted in the sand and stared me down. “Are you kidding me? That’s the last thing I ever assumed. The truth is, without you, my business would fail ten times over. I’m not so blind that I can’t see that. The job you do allows me to go out and do what I do. If I don’t have you, I might as well walk into that water until it covers my head because that’s what would happen to my business.”
“Thanks for saying so, but you can find an assistant anywhere. Probably someone far more qualified than I am.”
He held my upper arm tenderly, but frustration was evident on his handsome face. “Honey, listen to me. If you think I haven’t noticed the changes you’ve implemented in the business over the last year, you’re wrong. If you think I haven’t noticed that everything runs smoother since I hired you full-time and you have more power over the business, you’re wrong. There is no one out there more qualified to do what you do with me. Notice I didn’t say ‘for me’ because I know that at any time you could decide to walk away and do the same thing for someone else.”
“That’s why I got a degree.”
“So you could walk away?”
I tossed a piece of petrified wood across the sand and wiped off my hands. “Because it gave me the option to walk away.”
“How did you pay for a degree?”
His tone was nothing more than curious, so I answered. “Federal aid, student loans, a few scholarships here and there. I had credits from the tech college that transferred, so it was a bit cheaper. Since it was all online, that saved money too.”
“I honestly had no idea they offered an online degree, Honey. It’s why I said such a crappy thing to you about it. You were with me most of the time, so I knew you weren’t going to school on campus.”
I leaned back on the driftwood and stared at the lake rather than at him. “It wasn’t easy. I studied late at night and early in the morning when you were in town. When you were gone for long stretches, I worked whenever I had a free minute during the day and all night, every night. I managed. I won’t say it was easy, but that made getting that diploma in the mail all the sweeter.”
“That’s it? It just showed up in the mail? No graduation or anything?”
“Yeah, there was a graduation, but it was in Green Bay,” I admitted, picking up a handful of sand. “I didn’t want to show up alone, and what was the point anyway. My parents weren’t going to make the trip, and everyone at Butterfly Junction was too busy.”
“When was it?” he asked, full-on spinning to stare at me.
“Last Friday night.”
“You mean when we were working all weekend on the new deal, we were missing your college graduation?”
I held up both hands. “We had a deadline to meet. Besides, you can’t say you were missing out if you didn’t even know about it.”
A word dropped from his lips that I wasn’t fond of, and he covered his mouth with his hand. “Sorry,” he said, the word muffled by his fingers. “I’m disgusted with myself. I’m so sorry, honeybee,” he whispered, hugging me tightly. “I’m sick with the realization of what’s been going on, what I’ve missed, and how I can’t rewind time and change any of it.”
“Mathias, if we could rewind time, I’d rewind it to September of 1989.” My laughter filled the sky again, but this time it was overtly sarcastic.
“Why? You weren’t even born until 1990.”
“Exactly. September of 1989 would ensure I was never created. That would solve a whole lot of problems.”
“Never let me hear you say that again!” he exploded, grasping my chin in his hand. I grimaced, and he lessened the crushing of his fingers. “Honestly, Honey, I can’t believe you just said that. You need a neurologist, and I’m starting to think you need to see a counselor again too.”
I removed his hand from my chin and tossed it away. “I’m not going to off myself, Mathias. I was just saying that if I had never been born, things would have been easier for you and your parents. I’m not saying I regret being alive.” I waved my hand around in confusion. “I guess my point is, if we could rewind time and change things about our lives, we’d never get anywhere. We’d always be rewinding and doing it over and over again to see if we got better results the next time.”
His arm came around my shoulder and pulled me over into his chest. “I sure as hell hope so, because I can’t handle it when you say that. It’s not the first time or the first way you’ve said it either.”
He fell silent while I stared at the lake, thinking about how good it was to be in his arms. I would miss these moments when he was no longer part of my life.
“How’s your head?” he asked without lifting his cheek.
“Better. Either it was residual from the other day or I caught it in time,” I answered, sitting up and brushing the sand off my pants.
He stood and held his hand out to me, which I took. “Good,” he said, leading me back toward the cars. “Then it’s time for me to show you why I brought you here today.”
